Replies

I wasn't alive in the 30's, but I'd be surprised if blues music was marketed directly to children, as is the case today.

The blues (most of which was marketed as "race records" in the 1930s and up through about the early 1950s, by the way) was also a lot more subtle than what's going down today. The raunchiest bluesmen---and blueswomen, for that matter---were downright seminarians compared to today's rappers and metalheads.

I play blues on my weekly radio show, here in Las Vegas (either the hardcore blues, such as Muddy Waters, Albert Collins, Big Bill Broonzy, Johnny Winter, Lowell Fulson, Mose Allison, Ray Charles, or Sonny Boy Williamson; or the jazzmen who didn't forget the blues, such as Wes Montgomery, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Milt Jackson and John Coltrane---whose "Bags & Trane" is my opening theme music, and whose "Blues Legacy" is my closing theme music, by the way---or Miles Davis), and the raunchiest blues lyric on any of my chosen selections would be tame today. (About the raunchiest blues lyric that's been played on my show thus far is "Spoonful"; I used the studio version by Cream two weeks ago; I also used Muddy Waters's merely suggestive "The Same Thing" last week. On my first show, in early July, I used Sonny Boy Williamson's original "Bring It On Home," the number Led Zeppelin nicked for the album-closing track of the same name on Led Zeppelin II.)

I should advise that I don't pick by lyrics, raunchy or otherwise, though I'm pretty careful not to get that far out into the bullpen; I pick because it's just a good piece of music, and I'd wanted to play "The Same Thing" on radio for a long time, anyway, I'm that big a fan of Muddy Waters.

If I wanted to, I could probably get away with playing the aforesaid Bessie Smith side (though I'd first play her impeccable "Sing Sing Prison Blues," once I can land the recording again, especially since she was backed by Fletcher Henderson at the piano with Louis Armstrong playing crisp cornet); or, Lil Johnson's "My Stove's In Good Condition"; or, Bo Carter's "My Pencil Won't Write No More (The Lead's All Gone)"; or, even, Hunter and Jenkins's "Meat Cuttin' Blues," and get away with it---because almost nobody now would catch on when actually hearing the music. (I have those and other such selections on a CD in Columbia/Legacy's Roots 'n' Blues series, Raunchy Business: Hot Nuts and Lollypops.) Any teenagers listening to my show would probably miss the double- and triple-entendres entirely. Rap and heavy mental music have probably stripped them of any sense of appreciating a good, subtle double- or triple-entendre.